Not all businesses are at the same stage of their development. Whilst some firms might be well established and employ business specialist teams such as marketing, IT or HR professionals, there are lots of other firms at the beginning of their digital marketing journey who are looking for practical guidance on how to harness digital capabilities to increase business opportunities.

Firms who are at the start of their journey can gain great insight and learning from other member firms who have experience and success stories in digital marketing to share. Lots of these success stories can be found on our Business Opportunities Insights hub as part of this month's focus on Digital Marketing.

In addition, though the PrimeGlobal Marketing or Technology Special Interest Groups, (SIGs), members have the opportunity to connect with like minded peers and access tools and resources to enhance learning, increase knowledge, and share best practices.

Success in digital marketing starts from having an engaging and importantly, user friendly website that existing clients and prospective customers can access with ease, and feel comfortable navigating the different pages.

1. Create Easy to Read and Engaging Content

Your website is your gateway to a global audience, and is working for you 24 hours a day. Creating easy to read and engaging content, that is regularly refreshed, will ensure your existing clients stay interested in your business and will attract potential new clients who like what they see.

If you are creating your website yourself, it is a good idea to use a clean and minimalist template, and in particular, keep your home page free from 'content clutter'.

Make sure you use engaging visuals and fonts that are popular for people to read. Think about appealing to as wide an audience as possible, and don't let your own desire to create something too complex get in the way of something simple yet effective.

Remember to include your call to action sign posting!

Ultimately your website is there to encourage people to get in touch, make sure they don't have to cut through too much content to get to you!

2. Improve Your SEO Knowledge

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is what helps your website rank in search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. It's a good idea to have a read of SEO forums and research digital 'experts' such as SEJ, (Search Engine Journal), who often offer loads of free online support for those wishing to know the basics or just starting out on creating their website.

Understanding the necessity of keywords, backlinks, and tags, for example might seem like a foreign language to start off with, but well worth investing the time into, in order to make your website a success.

3. Ensure Your Website is Secure

Your data, and your customer's information is vital to the success of your firm, this is why it is important to ensure your website is safe from any potential data breach risk or hackers who may wish to harm your business.

Furthermore, as any GDPR breach can lead to potentially large fines for the firm concerned, as well as a risk to your firm's reputation, it is crucial that you protect your website by always reviewing your levels of cyber security. If your website isn't secure, this could be putting potential clients off and losing business!

4. Make Sure Your Website is Mobile Friendly

According to the latest stats, over 83% of the global population own a smartphone, that's a whopping 6.6 billion users, all with the potential of finding your website!

If your website does not have mobile friendly settings, this can be off putting as it doesn't appear correctly when people use their phones to search the web.

Your development site should have an easy to switch option, so that no matter what device your clients are using, they can read your content easily and clearly, and moreover, connect with the services you provide.

5. Keep Your Website Easy to Navigate

As with keeping your site mobile friendly, it is important to ensure your website is easy to navigate.

A good indication of this is whether you have a high 'bounce rate' from when people actually find you and stay on your site. Make sure your menu is easy to use and is structured in a way that users can clearly access the important information they require.

Maximize the potential of the footer, by adding contact details and important links, including your social channels.

As with the content you create, the navigation of your website is not the place to add complex functions that may seem whizzy and have the 'wow' factor, if your customers decide it is too complicated to use and decide to visit a competitor website instead.

Keep Learning and Developing your Skills

The Marketing and Communications Team here at PrimeGlobal is always on the lookout to upskill and learn about new trends and technologies, especially in the area of digital marketing where things are constantly evolving. Here are some recommendations of courses that the team has found rewarding and helped their development as a marketeer:

• Fundamentals of Marketing from Google Digital Garage - Bitesize video tutorials, learn at your own pace and a certificate on completion.
• General Assembly Workshop and Events - A huge variety of courses available from CX, Social Media through to Project Management and Coding.